Why was there a wall at the end of the track?

Aviation experts are questioning the role of an airport design that placed a dirt mound and a concrete wall beyond the end of a runway, which Jeju Air Flight 7C2216 crashed into on Sunday morning, killing to all but two of the 181 people on board.

The plane, a boeing 737-800, landed upside down on the runway at Muan International Airport in southwestern South Korea after a night flight, apparently with flaps and landing gear retracted. The plane burst into flames after hitting the ground and the wall where a locator that guides planes to the runway was installed.

“That certainly made it difficult to stop the plane safely,” said Todd Curtis, founder of Air Safe Media, which tracks aviation accidents and other incidents. Curtis worked at Boeing for nearly a decade as a safety engineer.

It will take crash investigators months, if not longer, to discover the cause of the crash, the worst air disaster ever to hit South Korea and the deadliest crash in years. they will examine everything from aircraft maintenance records to pilot programming, to engine and cockpit voice recorders.

Initial evidence suggests that a bird strike could have played a key role in the possible loss of the engine. Experts cautioned that the investigation is in the early stages.

Some aviation experts say the deaths could have been minimized if the plane had not hit the concrete wall.

In the video of the Jeju Air flight landing, “you see the plane skidding, it’s decelerating, they’re decelerating and everything’s going pretty well until they hit” the wall, said John Cox, an aviation safety consultant. and Boeing 737 pilot.

Cox said he suspects the cause of death for most of the passengers on board will be “blunt force trauma from hitting the wall.”

Barriers across airport runways are common and recommended by international and other aviation authorities.

In the United States, the Federal Aviation Administration requires a safety area about 500 feet wide and 1,000 feet beyond the end of the runway to limit damage if a plane overruns the runway. But the FAA says there are other mitigation methods under its Runway Safety Areas Program because many U.S. runways were built before the standard was established.

“Although RSA’s original improvement projects are complete, the program continues to evolve to address security risks and plan for future improvements,” the agency says.

At New York’s LaGuardia airport and others, for example, engineered material restraint systems, or EMAS, are installed, a crushable material that slows a plane beyond the runway and prevents it from rolling into more dangerous areas. In 2016, then-vice presidential candidate Mike Pence’s plane overran a landing strip in LaGuardia and was eventually stopped by EMAS.

The barrier at the edge of the runway at Muan International Airport did not appear to be fragile or capable of breaking, according to video footage and expert analysis, something investigators will likely focus on.